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Character Analysis Of Thomas Hardy's 'The Man He Killed'

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When meeting a new person, people have many thoughts going through their head. What are they wearing, how is their personality, or how is that person make a first impression? Nowadays people don't go on blind dates like they used to. Social media and the internet allow people to look up who they are meeting, and even contact them to learn more about them. Cell phones make meeting people in person almost impossible, as nowadays people have social anxiety. It’s easy to hide behind a screen and talk to a person, but then they can't hold a conversation in person. Meeting a foreign person is even harder, because people may not be able to understand them as they may have accents or speak a different language. Thomas Hardy wrote the poem “The Man he Killed”, about a guy who met a soldier in another country or even his own. He met him, brought his gun to gunpoint and shot at him, killing the man. Killing a man that you barely know, is what soldiers do everyday. Through characters, settings, and structure Thomas Hardy expresses how a man feels when he kills someone he barely knows. In poems we can not assume that the character is the author. Sometimes while reading through poems, the author gives hints about who the character is. In “The Man He Killed”, Hardy gives the reader a little information about the character. Readers can assume that character is a soldier, and a male from the title. The character seems like a person who would rather talk through a conflict rather than kill

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